There are dozens of romantic stories of people meeting, maybe at sunset on a beach, or eyes meeting across a crowded room, time standing still.
    For Kevin and Hiba Charles, they met in jail.
    Maybe a little context is needed.
    Staff Sergeant Charles, then a constable was stationed in Inuvik and Hiba was the manager of the local Rexall drug store. She also worked part-time evenings and weekends as a guard at the cells. While it wasn’t love at first sight, they got to know each other.
    “I knew her for a couple years but eventually we got engaged and here we are almost 12 years later,” said Kevin. “We clicked.”
    He can’t pinpoint when a love connection was made, but, he does recall, one time during their courtship that he knew he caught her eye. It was at an RCMP function.
    “I was bartending at the function, and they were playing music. I was back there mixing drinks and singing along to Neil Diamond, and I guess that kind have piqued her interest,” he laughs.
    He’s pretty sure it was Sweet Caroline.
    Being married to an RCMP officer is quite a commitment and from Inuvik, after they were married they moved to his next posting in Tulita in the remote north, about halfway between Inuvik and Yellowknife, a fly-in community. This was quite an adjustment for the young family, with Hiba leaving her family in Inuvik.
    “I don’t think people really understand or are appreciative that being a Mountie is difficult, but being married to a Mountie is even more difficult. We have always said the spouses are the ones that should be getting the awards.”
    He says that life with the RCMP is a commitment by the whole family, and it takes work.
     “Communication is very key, patience for me and my career, but the biggest thing is that she is known for herself, and not as ‘the cop’s wife,’” said Kevin.   “I think the one thing that frustrates us the most is when people refer to her as Kevin’s wife or the Staff Sergeant’s wife. She is her own person, and so am I when I go home and take the uniform off, I’m just Kevin.”
    “The secret is separating work life from personal life.”   

    Dennis, a waiter at Boston Pizza, had no idea that one day, one table, one customer could change his life forever. Stasha never thought that regular night out with her friends could change her view on life as she knew it. But that’s just how it happened for Dennis and Stasha Standage.
    Stasha told The Mail that when Dennis waited on her table in 1990, she was only a teenager but that was when she first fell in love.
    Stasha said, “When he served me my dessert he put extra whipped cream on it and as he passed it to me he put some on his finger and wiped it on my nose. After that I was hooked!”
    Even though she couldn’t get him out of her mind after that night, it wasn’t until four years later when they started their relationship. Both Dennis and Stasha were living in Calgary at the time when they were visiting their families in Drumheller for the Christmas holidays and bumped into each other.
    Stasha said, “A mutual friend’s band played at Reds. We ran into each other and hung out. Then the next day Dennis asked me to come to his mom’s for a meal he cooked.”
    Dennis said, “I had to call my sister to get Stasha’s phone number from one of her friends. We were both living in Calgary so we saw each other all the time.”
    It wasn’t always that easy for the young couple.
    “At one point we ended up having to have a long distance relationship when I moved to Cochrane. It was 8 months before Stasha moved in.” Dennis said,  “We started out with nothing.”
    “Nothing but love,” Stasha laughed.
    After moving in together the couple became love birds, barely ever apart. Then on Christmas Eve 2008, Dennis surprised her with a proposal she will never forget.
    Dennis said, “At Christmas we alternate whose family we go to. That Christmas we were at Stasha’s mom’s in Drumheller. Everyone was there. There were like twenty people in her parent’s living room.”
    According to Dennis he had found a Jack in the Box that he and his mom sewed a sign saying, “Will you marry me?” with a ring attached to the sock monkey that pops up.
    “We usually would exchange our gifts at home before we left for our parent’s because it was less to haul but Dennis said he had forgot a gift and that his mom was bringing it.” Stasha said, “I really wanted a puppy so when I opened the Jack in the Box and turned the crank I was thinking that it would be a puppy saying, ‘Come pick me out and bring me home.’ When I read the first two words I started freaking out and dropped the Jack in the Box.”
    Dennis said, “She didn’t even see the ring, just started freaking out.”
    In 2010, Stasha and Dennis got married with their family and friends watching in Mexico. According to Stasha the wedding was all they had hoped for but not until they faced a few hiccups, which included Stasha being bit by a raccoon.
    During their honeymoon, the couple got matching tattoos on their forearms that when held together showed two love birds on the same branch. It wasn’t long before Dennis and Stasha returned to Drumheller and soon after started a successful restaurant called Sublime.
    Stasha said, “Dennis always dreamed of owning a restaurant and that soon became my dream also. Now we are just living that dream. Some people couldn’t work together but it just works for us.”